


Redolence

by ancestrallizard



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, also featuring the rumor created copies of the main party for like 4 sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 09:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancestrallizard/pseuds/ancestrallizard
Summary: Clones created from rumors don't make for very good company.





	Redolence

**Author's Note:**

> may be incompatible with P2's canon in all as I still haven't finished the game yet. As a warning also probably includes many many incorrect flower husbandry practices

“And then you water the edge like this, see?”

The blonde girl blinked owlishly at Joker, stared down at the potted marigold plants that he was currently watering as if the thing were totally alien, and looked back at him with a slack face and deep red eyes. How do you not know this, he almost asked. I’ve told you this before, just a day ago. Why did you forget?

Joker didn’t know why he expected anything different. The most apt simile he could think up for the duplicates born from rumors of terrorists was that they were like selective mirrors. Wherever they heard about the person they were based on they grew sharper, more intent and intelligent, ready start going on and on about insecurities and weaknesses, but without that stimulus they were usually disinterested an unresponsive. He tried talking to them a few times, and the blank stares and automatic responses of Yes Joker, No Joker, I don’t understand, made his chest ache for some reason. They weren’t good for much besides destroying things and taking orders. For example, taking orders to help care for the plants he used for calling cards.

Which was fine. He hadn’t hoped for anything else. 

In the present, Joker sighed in frustration. “Never mind, just – water the ones in the corner.” 

“Yes, Joker.” The duplicate said, and left. He watched to make sure that the shadow did the task instead of wandering off through the stone maze of Xibalba. 

There wasn’t much else to do. The skulls were in place for the most part, so Joker was left to struggle to keep his flowers alive. The room he’d received for his plants was lit by weak, flickering bulbs, and was uncomfortably cold. The plants were wilting fast and he didn’t know how to keep them from fading. He’d tasked the copies of Lisa and Eikichi to help, and was performing the dual tasks of working with the flowers and keeping an eye on them to make sure they followed orders, otherwise things could go very wrong very quickly. He’d once told the duplicate Eikichi to cut part of a plant off and left, coming back to find that the copy had methodically shredded the whole thing. 

He did not think about how technically he didn't need these flowers as calling cards anymore. If he didn’t have them, he wouldn’t have anything in Xibalba to occupy him but his thoughts, and that tended to not end well. When he kept busy, his head stayed quiet, or at least manageable. 

The back of his neck pricked in alarm, which was his best sense to know when someone was watching him as his mask severed his peripheral vision. A tall figure with a piecing gaze stared impetuously at him from across the room. 

Of all the duplicates, he’d interacted with the copy of Tatsuya the least. He had no reason to. Tatsuya was a murderer and it was doubtful the duplicate would be any better (All the same, some part of him had hoped the shadow would be different, a version of Tatsuya that wasn’t a killer, one that he could have been friends with, but those hopes fell to wayside once he realized what mockeries the shadows were, and he hadn’t thought about it since.) 

What was particularly frustrating was that of all the copies, Tatsuya’s was best at minute tasks like plant husbandry. The blank face changed when Joker explained and demonstrated how to take care of the flowers, with what he could almost call resolve, and the shadow hadn’t once destroyed anything he wasn’t ordered to. Joker hated the copy all the more for it. 

He refocused and belatedly realized that he’d been near strangling a pink carnation. A few pale ruffled petals fell into the dirt. 

“Go take care of the lilies.” He ordered the shadow.

But the duplicate just stared at him, like it so often did.

“What are you waiting for? Go!” He turned back to the flowers. Why had he even planted them?

“Yes, Jun,” The shadow said. 

Joker flinched, almost sending the carnation to the floor. His jacket, gloves, and mask seemed to have tightened, going from well-fitted to strangling. There wasn’t enough stale air. “What did you say?” He said, voice hoarse. 

“Yes, Joker.” The shadow said, and left to carry out his orders.

Joker’s hands curled into fists on the table.

–. It’d called him –. Why did it call him – ? 

His head throbbed. “I’m going out,” he muttered, though he didn’t know why. The shadows didn’t care, and there was nowhere to go. He was trapped alone with dying flowers under tons of cold stone. 

Stepping into the hall gave him no relief. The long shadows cast by the lights along the wall looked like they were going to ensnare him. Maybe he should talk to Father about it. Yes, that was good, he should do that. Father would make things clearer.

But he stayed in place, his mind leagues away from shadows or Nazis or fathers. He raised his gloved fingers to curl around the edges of his face, searching for the borders of the mask, but he couldn’t find them. It had always fit well, but now the way it cut off his vision and hearing and blocked smell made him feel faintly ill. Some small, treacherous wish nearly broke through the surface of his mind, but he caught it in time before he put it into words and pushed it back down.

He went back to finish his work, and the wish stayed buried. Until he saw the original Masked Circle again, standing together against him and the duplicates and the crystal skulls, and again strangely the wish resurfaced, the wish to feel the sun and smell flowers again.

**Author's Note:**

> I want Jun to be happy I really do


End file.
